


Briar Rose

by oneinspats



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Genre: M/M, alt-ending, post-trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:53:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneinspats/pseuds/oneinspats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post the trilogy - Beckett and Mercer survive somehow and are back in England working things out.<br/>X-posted on LJ a year or so ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Briar Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Also: Who decided Ian was a good name for Mr Mercer? It's terrible. He's always been Joseph in my head, but I generally don't use first names cause in the movies he doesn't have one. 
> 
> kthnxbai.

My mum deigned to tell me that I was born on the wrong side of the bed sheets, Sir.  
Beckett paused with raised eyebrows. Whore-son, then. His second guess had been right. He waved his hand – do continue Mister Mercer. Can’t have you working for me for as long as you have, through all of that and not hear your story. Etc.  
I think it was before marriage. That is. Her marriage was my fault. Her family is Catholic, you see, Sir. And very traditional.  
Yes, yes he saw. He saw by the way he understood. Knife point marriage? They needed a new term.  
So I was born in July, or thereabouts. They were married in March, though I was small and she was small and so apparently it didn’t show too much. Or that might have been the neighborhood way of saying she showed a great deal but no one would say anything. My father drank whiskey.  
A mean drunk?  
A drunk. Mister Mercer shrugged. A drunk as all men are drunk, I suppose, Sir. He would stare at the fire after about eleven and call me a little rag tag slut but I think he didn’t know what else to call me.  
The papers were set down and Beckett picked up another set. He wondered if the drunk father had other reasons for calling his son a rag tag little slut but didn’t ponder it too long. Mister Mercer was making a long face and shifting from foot to foot. So he didn’t like his story – few men every really did and even fewer liked talking about it.  
My mum disappeared when I was seven. Went out for something or other and never came back. My father drank whiskey and something else after that.  
Something else?  
He was mixing the whiskey with it. I don’t rightly know what, Sir. I was seven.  
How were you educated?  
The local priest. He was Catholic, only one for miles but he didn’t wear a cassock since you die if you wear a cassock. This was William and Anne, if you remember, Sir. Jacobites and anti-Jacobites though I didn’t mind politics much.  
So you got your letters from a priest? His second guess was only somewhat right then, perhaps mixed with his fourth? He had a lot of guesses. Had a lot of time to guess. Mister Mercer was as tight lipped at they came. Little sod.  
I got my letters, yes Sir.  
How’d you pay him?  
Mister Mercer shrugged.  
Rag tag little slut?  
The Oxford accent doesn’t suit the phrase, Sir.  
No, no it doesn’t. Do continue. He waved his hand again. Don’t mind me, he wanted to say. I’ve only wondered about you since I first met you when I was a boy and you were a man though you’re still a man. A much younger man, or maybe much older? Much older, Beckett decided, watching how tired Mister Mercer’s eyes were. No one can help but grow old after everything that happened. He refused to say the place name though Mister Mercer would with that northern lilt of his. Caribbean had a lovely ring to it that hid all the brutality that it was.  
I ran away when I was twelve to London. To make my fortune. He didn’t hide the irony or the amusement from his voice. His face was impassive but it was rarely anything else.  
And you met me.  
I’ve about nine years to tell before you show up, Sir. I don’t think you like that though. He was staring hard so Beckett was looking elsewhere. That I had a life before you.  
Not much of one.  
Silence that granted a positive to the statement. No, no, not much of one, but a life none the less. A life without all the trials and tribulations Beckett brought, a life without an arrogant lord, a vain, no longer pretty, lord.  
I shall continue later, Sir. It’s three and your tea is ready. 

 

I wanted to dream of you when I was on the ship. Beckett wrote it down in the journal his wife had bought him one Christmas many Christmases ago. I wanted to dream of England and my mistress’ pretty thighs and my son’s black hair. I wanted to dream of the May Pole and the holly and the wheat in the fields and the apple orchards. I wanted to dream of tea sets and tea spoons and tea leaves and tea time. I wanted to dream of the dirty streets and dirty whores and dirty cabbies. But mostly I wanted to dream of you but you wouldn’t let me and I heard your soft, quiet, quiet, voice telling me to sleep, sleep, sleep and that you would be coming for me soon because I needed you. I needed you and you left my memory and my mind before I could remind you that you needed me as well. I don’t think you realize that and part of me doesn’t want to tell you.  
He wrote all night and burned the journal in the morning. Mister Mercer knew his mind, his logic, his calculations but he needn’t know his soul. He wasn’t a priest or a reverend or a preacher or a deacon or whatever it was they were nowadays. He was just a whore-son and a clerk and would remain as such forever. 

 

The doctor proscribed another salve and more patience on the part of his patient. Beckett would not improve if he didn’t give himself time to heal, to recover, if he kept insisting on working late hours and pushing himself too hard. Time heals all things. He repeated it with a beatific smile. Time heals all things.  
Or makes them worse, Beckett said with a scowl to Mister Mercer who had the grace not to reply. Instead he helped the younger man into his frock and handed him Company papers.  
On behalf of Lord Tinsley, and The East India Trading Company (the “Company”), enclosed please find copies of the draughts related to the stock trade in Amsterdam pursuant to your request made this Thursday last…  
Vision blurred, his right eye working for both, and he pushed the papers back into Mister Mercer’s hands. He arranged them again. Face impassive. Ever, ever impassive.  
Tea, Sir?  
Yes. 

 

When he was a boy and Mister Mercer a slightly younger man, for the clerk had never been a youth, Beckett was sure. He had asked for a kite, a pretty blue kite with a long tail and Mister Mercer had said that good things come to those who wait. Beckett had been too young to know what his father’s under-clerk was saying and to tell him to stop quoting adages at him.  
Have your own opinion, he had said after his first year in University. He was full of his own opinions, then. Full of his own worth and beauty and intelligence and woe to those who dared to forgo a classical education.  
I’ve opinions enough, Sir. Best I keep them quiet, though. They've never done me much good.  
But when he was a boy he didn’t know that Mister Mercer was anything but another man, anything but another human. Instead he was a father except he didn’t accuse him of being an unworthy lay-about, he was an older brother but didn’t risk inheriting everything and didn’t tie him to coat racks by his breeches, he was a mother except he didn’t make him wash his hands before tea time and didn’t scold him when he said he wanted another biscuit. Really, mother, I’m hungry and I want another biscuit. Please, mother. Young boys do not speak unless spoken to, a sharp look. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.  
The kite appeared in his room one morning with a note saying that the day was windy and that if he wanted to, after tea time, he could fly it. He ran to his father’s office still in night shift, knobby knees knocking together as he found the under-secretary (shadow clerk, his father sneered at Mister Mercer, one day. Shadow clerk, shadow secretary, for bloody sake, be your own man. Your smart enough – his father had been into the cognac. Stop working for my clerk and work for a company man.). He smiled shyly and said Thank You Mister Mercer, in that overly-practiced way of his before giving an awkward bow and racing from the room.  
He must have been seven at the time. Maybe eight. Mister Mercer was just a younger Mister Mercer. The clerk never could remember his birthday and made a point about remembering to forget his age – if, indeed, he knew it at all. 

 

The doctor came twice a week. He used to come four times, when they had first arrived home from --, but as time marched steadily on the visits became less frequent. Things were mending as best they could. No use rushing it, no use hoping for it to go faster.  
Mister Mercer was helping Beckett fix his neck cloth when Kitty walked in holding a letter as a pretense for entering her husband’s room which she had secretly termed a lair. Secretly termed meaning she had whispered it with giggles to her favorite chamber maid who had then promptly told Mister Mercer because everything was promptly told to Mister Mercer who had always made it clear to the staff that it was his business to know things and well in their interest to tell him.  
Lady Alice, Lord Penworthy’s wife-  
I know the Lady Alice, Beckett said with a look, waving Mister Mercer into the shadows.  
She has personally invited us-  
Yes.  
My lord?  
To a gathering of some sort on a date about two weeks in the future and you wish to know if we are going. Yes we are going; I’ve business to discuss with Robert.  
Kitty nodded and refrained from reminding her husband that this was a social event, not a work event. When she had first married him she used to try and remind him that she hadn’t married the job but the man and he had duly replied that in marrying the man one marries the job. Welcome to life, my little Kitty. But he had been cold and deadpanned his response so the endearment didn’t work.  
I shall reply today.  
The clock ticked. Beckett fixed his wig, his cuffs, his coat. Everything even. Kitty watched and realized she had never seen her husband get dressed. Never seen him get undressed, either. Sex had always been quick and discreet and done with covers over them and night shifts awkwardly pushed up. Rutting, a chaste, obligatory kiss, and he was gone. She didn’t know if he had freckles or a birthmark or scars.  
How is Christian? He asked it with evident interest and she smiled.  
He is well. His studies are coming along, he tutor wishes to see you tomorrow about his Latin.  
He nodded – yes, yes, he would see the blasted man. Or Mister Mercer would see the blasted man, depending on when he arrived. If he had the good grace to arrive before tea time he’d see Beckett. After tea time and he wouldn’t get past the hawk-faced clerk who looked like something from one of those horror soft-backed penny dreadfulls. 

 

Christian Beckett looked like his father in that he had black hair that was beginning to curl, blue eyes that occasionally tended towards the grey, a round face that could be termed pudgy in his youth, and thin lips. But he was his mother in his happy disposition and pleasing manners and peaches-and-cream skin. He was Mister Mercer in that he knew to keep his peace and when to look away while looking and knew what to remember and why. Beckett once joked that his son would be a good successor to Mister Mercer in his trade, Mister Mercer simply said the boy was intelligent but who was surprised by that?  
The boy had asked his father why there were scars on his face and what was this bit here that was his flesh but didn’t look it – it was black and red and missing bits and what happened? He had asked it with the innocence of an eight year old so Beckett forgave him the impertinence.  
I was in a battle, he said vaguely with eyes lifting to the space he knew Mister Mercer to be. It didn’t end well. Burns. He waved to left of his face.  
You’re a war hero! The boy declared with a happy face. He bounced excitedly, grabbed his wooden sword and raced down the hall exclaiming his father to be a war hero. Or something of the sort. No one had the heart to disabuse him of the notion.  
I should tell him, Beckett said a few days later. That it was for the Company.  
And not old blighty?  
And that I’m not a war hero. Not a hero at all, actually. He’ll hate me if I don’t tell him and someone else does. Lady Alice.  
A shared grimace.  
You could tell him, the younger man said looking at Mister Mercer without actually looking. You could tell him without telling him. How you told me everything I didn’t want to hear when I was boy.  
Sir, you were more of a temperament for that sort of thing than your son.  
Then tell him directly.  
Sir. This is not my place. A bow, he left, and Beckett wondered if that was how Mister Mercer had felt when his mother went to town for something or other and never came back. 

 

Continue your story. He ordered it a week after he took Christian aside and explained the difference between a war hero and himself. The boy didn’t seem too depressed and still said that his father had seen action which made him immediately better than all the other boys’ fathers who hadn’t seen any action.  
I don’t have a story, Sir.  
Yes, you do. You don’t like it much, I think. But I don’t like my story either. And you know mine, I don’t know yours. He was reading a letter from Lord Robert Penworthy as he lamented his latest mistress who, it seemed, had seen fit to leave him for a Frenchman. Lady Alice was a bitter, angry woman and Beckett was beginning to see that he couldn’t blame her too much.  
You left off with your going to London to make your fortune.  
To make or mar, Sir. I've never had many scruples, I was not raised in a family where virtues were honored. And as I found that I don’t care too much for my fellow men I took to slitting throats for purses. Or sometimes slitting throats for another who would pay me as they saw fit.  
At fifteen? He had the good sense to look a fraction uneasy.  
Most started younger than I. Ten, I think, one boy was. He’d drop down from an overhang and slit you before you knew what had happened. He was a nasty bugger.  
It was said with some small fondness, Beckett noted. He was a nasty bugger. Or, rather, ‘E was anasty bugga. Mister Mercer had a tendency to slur words together on the odd occasion. As if he couldn’t make his tongue separate articles from adjectives, verbs, or nouns.  
What was the boy’s name? This ten year old?  
Timmy, or Tommy depending. I just called him the Little Fucker and we seemed to get on in our own way.  
And what did he call you?  
I think you can guess that, Sir. He was as close to smirking as Mister Mercer ever got and Beckett felt he had perhaps accomplished something. Mister Mercer wasn’t fond of emotions, after all. Even smug ones. 

 

Kitty declared she wanted a new dress. Declared was the proper verb for she did not say it, she did not tell it, she did not request it, nor demand it. She declared it. Over breakfast, with her lips in a suitable pout. She could be a pretty little thing, in an inbred, aristocratic sort of way.  
He simply told her to go buy a new dress. She had money. Christian watched them with eerie silence for a boy his age. Beckett remembered that he had always made noise when he was at the table, if only to annoy his mother. Christian, instead, would watch with those blue-grey eyes of his and watch, and watch then go find Mister Mercer and would sit in his lap and watch him work. Beckett knew he told him everything, too.  
I’m a little short, at the moment, Kitty said. That she said, and quietly too.  
How much do you need? Apparent disinterest, he would not short his wife change. He would not gain that sort of reputation, regardless of all the others he already had. He would always treat her with the modicum of respect due to a woman of her station.  
I’ll send you the bill later.  
Excellent.  
Christian drank a bit of tea and continued to watch his parents. Weather was discussed. That meant they were getting along. Work and gossip were discussed when they weren’t. Weather was the only subject they could ever agree on, weather and Christian’s education. 

 

Mister Mercer was not a man prone to dreams. He was not a man prone to flights of fancy, to pondering the unponderable, to wondering why and when and where and what, to wishing for the never could be-should be-would be, to wanting things he ought not to want, to thinking things he ought not to think. He was not a man prone to passionate feelings, to feelings in general (if he could help himself). He was, in short, a sound man. A reasonable man. A man who didn’t do unsound or unreasonable things.  
He didn’t watch his master sleep at night so he could see the way the shoulders peeked out from under the eiderdown. He didn’t insist on bringing his master papers during his bath that he-absolutely-had-to-see-right-this-instant simply so he could watch water drip over his master’s chest and back. He didn’t simultaneously curse and bless whatever it was that was out there for the Caribbean because ever since then his master let him, and only him, help him dress in the morning. He never did any of those things. Or, rather, he never did any of those things for those reasons.  
He was a sound man, after all. 

 

Lady Alice commandeered Beckett for the second dance and grilled him about everything he knew concerning her husband. Which, for the sake of old friendship, he knew nothing. Nothing even as Robert flirted with the latest pretty young thing to appear this season. Nothing even as he watched Robert dance four dances with the same chit. If Lady Alice couldn’t see it then he wasn’t going to help her. It wasn’t his marriage, after all. Kitty had made a pertinent point, when she had said that to him on the carriage ride here. It’s not your marriage, Cutler, don’t bother yourself. Bland smiles to both of them when they ask you about the other. Bland smiles, you’re good at those. And she had sat back in her new dress satisfied both with her looks and her advice.  
I want you to know that I consider you a good friend, Lady Alice said as they took a turn on the balcony. There were shadows in the garden so he knew Mister Mercer was lurking somewhere near by. It was a comforting thought. And it had become steadily more comfortable after that and everything that had happened there. Helped remind him that he wasn’t insane and that Mister Mercer had seen it all too.  
Am I? How gratifying. A demure answer she accepted with a demure smile.  
My husband, I know, is an old friend of yours. His parents were your godparents, I believe.  
Robert and I are close, yes.  
He tells you everything. Her eyes were suddenly not the hard rocks they had been before, under the harsh light of the ball room. Out here they were soft, they were tired, they were hurt. I know he does, all his little…conquests. He tells you.  
I couldn’t say- Not your marriage, it was in his mind. This isn’t your marriage.  
Yes you could, if you wanted to. She laid her hand on his. What would you like in return?  
Nothing you could give me. Bitter. He had let his guard down so he attacked now with a vengeance. And this conversation is far from proper, Lady Alice. You expect me to forsake my friendship with Robert because you are jealous? Madam, you knew what he was when you married him. I’ll have nothing to do with any of this.  
He strode away with head high and proud and ignored the pained look he had left on the balcony, ignored the fact that had Lady Alice wanted to, she could have hurt him more than he cared to admit. Nothing you could give me, he was angry. He had slipped. He had admitted something. And that something was following him in the shadows and watching him with ever present eyes and gaze that felt so good, sometimes, it hurt. 

 

I am not a pointlessly vain man. He said it to himself as he stared out the window. Mister Mercer had been kind enough to rid his room of all mirrors. The window pain still reflected enough for him to know, though. Enough for him to see what he did his best not to see.  
I am vain. Yes. But not pointlessly so. I loath all things done sans purpose. Futile gestures are an anathema to me, meaningless exercises and actions are a bane. I ensure that all my actions, all my gestures and exercises have a clear and concise purpose. I ensure that I instill my life with meaning. I am not a philosopher, I am not a lay-about, I am not Mister Mercer who has the ability to go through life frankly not caring what the telos of it all is. I will have a meaning, even if it is one I make myself. As for Him and His plan. I do not pretend to know or understand. And even though recent events have robbed my clerk of the minimal faith he had left, I feel it has only served as a proof to me. A proof that there is something larger than us out there. But I find I don’t care to think on the subject any more than that, the particulars are obscured in the grander picture and I don’t care who is truly right in the end. Mister Mercer has said that if God cared to look too closely at his creation He would be disgusted that we are arrogant enough to say we are created in His image. Mister Mercer also says that he hasn’t been to confession in longer than he can remember so his opinions on religion don’t matter much, I think.  
He stops. Frowns. Realises that there is truly no one in the room. Continues on anyway. His monologue rambling on about religion and pride and the vainness of his clerk to have pretensions of acting as if he knows more than the rest of the race. He stops, the door has opened.  
Are you ready for church, Sir?  
He knows Mister Mercer is as close to a semblance of irony as he can manage.  
Of course, he scoffs. Mister Mercer simply adjusts his hat and neck cloth for him and says that the carriage is waiting. It’s a dreary day, best not to walk it in case of rain. He complies and says Thank You when he is handed his cane and watches as Mister Mercer slips off in another direction. Presumably to town. Or to a Papist church he knows about. Or to confession. He likes to think he’s going to confession, it gives him hope that perhaps Mister Mercer is as angry and frustrated and betrayed by everything as he has been. 

 

You said my father found you in a whore house. They were standing in the gardens and for once Beckett’s view wasn’t blocked with purposeful papers.  
I did, Sir. Drunk as a lord.  
He said he found you in a tavern, that Warham had recommended you.  
It was a tavern. A tavern that was a whore house and anyone who went there regularly knew this. Your father went there regularly.  
How do you know? Said sharply. Coldly.  
Because he was known. Don’t be daft, Sir.  
There are some things one rather not know about one’s father.  
Mister Mercer refrained from commenting which showed a good sense of the moment and Beckett appreciated him for it.  
Why were you there?  
At the whore house? Drinking. It was the cheapest, quickest drunk in town.  
Why were you drinking?  
I had no conceivable reason not to be drinking.  
Life? Drowning sorrows? Drowning love?  
Hardly, his laugh was harsh and demeaning. Beckett had never heard it from him before. I simply had no reason to remain sober. My life was all I ever expected it to be, I had no sorrows since I had no happiness. I was simply existing. And love. That derisive laugh. Love happens to other people, not me.  
You don’t feel it?  
No. I do. He paused, Beckett watched with interest as the clerk chose his answer. It’s simply never returned. But I wouldn’t drown myself in drink over it. He shrugged. I never expect anything I feel to be returned. Expecting something is setting yourself up for disappointment.  
And Beckett thought that it was said by a man who had spent much of his life hoping only to find that hope was a futile gesture and had given up on it.  
What were you drinking?  
Cheap wine. Whiskey. Something bitter that was alcoholic but I don’t know what it’s called. From the continent, I think.  
Did you mix it with the whiskey? Like your father?  
No. 

 

It felt like a canyon when he closed his eyes and traced fingers over the side of his face. The bottom of his left earlobe was missing and it simply got worse as he worked his way towards the centre. His wife hadn’t been able to look at him for over a full month when he had returned. She would stare at curtains, at the food on her plate, at his chest, he wig, over his right shoulder, even at Mister Mercer before she would look at him. Christian simply asked questions and wondered why skin healed a different colour from what it should be. Why was it whiter? Why was this pink-like? Father, why can’t you feel anything there? Mister Mercer was the only one who looked at him much the same as he had before. With calm indifference and something like respect.  
You said not to go through life with great expectations. His eyes were closed but he could feel Mister Mercer watching him.  
Sir? The pause had been too long. Mister Mercer had wanted to say something more, something else other than Sir. Other than Indeed, indeed, of course, of course. But he wasn’t paid for his opinions.  
I think I might take your view, at least your view of expectations of returned feelings.  
The silence became heavy. He felt a shift and knew the older man had moved.  
Who are you thinking of, Sir?  
The voice was closer, so the man wasn’t hiding in the shadows anymore.  
No one of any consequence. Simply musing that even they could do better than me. At least in terms of – his made a vague motion to his face, his body. Money, perhaps not. I’m certainly wealthier than anyone else they’d sleep with.  
Someone of lower class, then, Sir?  
Patient, patient Mister Mercer. Always waiting for Beckett to tell him, never prying yet always curious.  
Yes. Beckett laughed. Quite a bit lower.  
Would you like me to arrange anything?  
Perhaps. Blue-grey eyes opened to see dark brown-almost-black ones staring back impassively. Beckett wanted to damn him for his impassiveness. Later, though. I’m not certain enough about the situation yet.  
As you say, Sir. 

 

Christian wanted to play war. He had little figurines ready, all lined up with the baddies on one side and the goodies on the other. He was going to play the goodies and wanted father to play the baddies. Please, father? Hopeful look and Beckett shook his head.  
Later, I’ve work. Run along.  
The boy watched for a calculated moment with a silence as heavy as Mister Mercer’s before he slipped from the room, a waif of a child sometimes.  
Beckett searched for him later, wondering where he had got to. Christian, I can play with you now, if you’d like. He remembered Mister Mercer telling him to play with his son. But I don’t know how, he had said. Don’t worry, children are very good at teaching. And he had somewhat-not-really-smiled and handed his master a paper hat and told him to go be the pirate Barbarossa. Boys love to sword fight. Sword fight with him and he will always have a good memory of you. Sons should have at least one good memory of their father.  
Beckett hadn’t known about the wrong-side-of-the-bed-sheets and the whiskey then. All he had known was that Mister Mercer was usually right about these things, for some reason, so it was best to listen to him.  
He headed towards the hot house. Anything involving soldiers was played in the hot house, usually. Christian would pretend it was the new world and that there were strange creatures hiding in the foliage. Giant reptiles and birds and lizards.  
The Battle of Philippi? He heard the question asked with gentle amusement. With Frenchman and British?  
Yes. Tutor told me all about it yesterday. I don’t have any Romans. He could imagine the face his son was pulling. He knew Mister Mercer would be long-suffering bemused affection. The one emotion that unified his interactions with everyone in the Beckett family. The clerk had a way of handling them that seemed to work.  
Very well. We’ll have to change the set up, then.  
Father would insist on that as well.  
You can’t play out one battle with the organization of another. Practical advice Beckett realised he had learned too late. He remembered Mister Mercer telling him the same thing when he was younger. He wondered who had first told the older man that. Or had he figured it out on his own?  
Christian said something in agreement and there were sounds of figures being moved. Of potted plants being shifted. Of – Can we have a giant serpent, Mister Mercer? Please? I know Antony would have had one if he could have. And can the baddies have a kraken? I’m sure Cassius would have liked a kraken.  
Silence. Even Beckett found he wasn’t breathing.  
Serpent yes, came the soft answer. Kraken, no. How about a dragon?  
Dragons are all right, I suppose.  
He left them to the game and wandered out to the gardens, leaning on his cane more than he was used to. There were birds chirping something cheerful and the flowers needed to be trimmed and why was the sun so bright today? They lived in England, the sun shouldn’t be this bright. It was too much like there and that place with those creatures. The sun. The sun needed to not shine. 

 

He found Mister Mercer in the study with Plutarch in his hand, skimming. He said he didn’t know the older man liked the classics.  
I realised all I knew about Philippi was that Brutus and Augustus were involved in some way. Your son insisted we reenact it, you see, Sir.  
He saw. He sat down and watched Mister Mercer turn a page.  
Sir? Lifted eyebrow over battered pages.  
Mister Mercer. Statement.  
Sir? Question. Inquiry.  
Mister Mercer. Do you – he stopped. Would you – stopped again.  
Sir? Question. More forceful inquiry.  
What do you think of the Greeks? Asked with face turned towards the fire.  
The Greeks, Sir? I don’t have an opinion of the Greeks. He paused, watched his master’s face. Should I?  
Yes. Growled. Yes, you should have. And he wanted to say that you should know what I’m asking, and for Christ’s sake you’re reading Plutarch why haven’t you read Plato? Why haven't you read Plutonius? Why haven’t you read anything at all? Why are you a whore-son without a proper education and by proper I mean classic. Mister Mercer had a proper education, after all, it just wasn’t Beckett’s proper education.  
Sir – drawled slowly. Sir, what are you getting at?  
I’m getting at that you are not properly well read. You ought to be. I’ve Ovid somewhere. Read him.  
Sir. He’s Latin.  
He’s classical. And that’s what matter. Read Ovid, and Catullus and don’t speak to me until you’re done. Plutarch is nothing.  
Virtue, he heard Mister Mercer say. Thou were but fortune’s slave. 

 

He finished Ovid in a week and hunted the house for Catullus, finding it after a day in Beckett’s room. It was in a box with letters from university. Dust covered and when Beckett saw him with them he laughed and said they ought to be burnt.  
Did you read them? He asked it with apparent ease. I wouldn’t be mad if you had.  
No, Sir.  
Of course you wouldn’t. It was relief and something like annoyance. It would have been easier if you had.  
Easier, Sir?  
When Beckett kissed Mister Mercer it was awkward and shy and messy and a little like being fifteen again and not really knowing what he was doing other than the fact that he had been told that when you like someone a great deal you put your mouth and on their’s and it’s supposed to be a jolly good time.  
You should have had me read the Symposium, Sir. Mister Mercer said when Beckett pulled away looking young. It would have been more to the point, I think.  
So you have read the Greeks. I thought you hadn’t.  
I haven’t an opinion, Sir. That doesn’t mean I haven’t read them. Beckett owned that this was true and kissed him again, this time with a little more grace than the last and when he undid Mercer’s waist coat he found warm skin under his shirt and scars and muscles trembling and rounded shoulders and a mouth that seemed partial to his neck and his own chest and his face – he pulled away.  
Please, he said, trying to be calm and emotionless. Don’t.  
Mister Mercer was dark eyed and frowned but nodded. He said he would obey though he thought it a shame because Sir had always been handsome to him, regardless.  
Then you’re alone, Mister Mercer. In thinking that, no one else does.  
Then they’re foolish. A simple fact and Beckett found he didn’t want to hear it, any of it, so pulled away, buttoned his waist coat and disappeared from the room. 

 

Tea. Beckett scowled when his wife suggested it. We should have them around for tea, as a return for their invitation to the dinner.  
I don’t care to spend the afternoon with Lady Alice. He buttered his biscuit. Fruit was put onto his plate and he absently told Christian to stop picking at his finger nails. That was rude.  
Robert will be there. I’m sure the both of you can find ways to amuse yourselves once the formalities are over. She paused and stirred sugar into her cup. You can’t avoid London forever.  
I’m not avoiding London.  
She didn’t respond, simply put more fruit onto Christian’s plate and told him to eat it. The boy pouted but did as he was told.  
I’m not avoiding London, Kitty.  
You go to work, you go to your club with a few friends, you come home. You didn’t go to the dinner with Glasbrook. You didn’t come out to the weekend at Bath with Wiltshire and his wife. You refused to attend the theatre with my sister and I. Cutler, you are avoiding London society.  
I’m doing no such thing. I’ve work I need to get done, if you will excuse me Kitty. And invite them around, by all means. He snarled the last sentence. I’m sure we’ll have a lovely afternoon listening to Lady Alice and Robert fight. 

 

I can remember a story my mum once told me. I had been a boy, more so a boy then than I am now. I was knee high to her skirts and would sit on the ground and look up at her thinking her old and wise and perfect. Mothers are perfect when boys are five and six and seven.  
She would tell me a story of a woman who would get caught in thorns and bushes and branches and wouldn’t be able to escape. She would lay there, trapped, finger pricked by a thistle or a thorn, sleeping, sleeping, unawares of everything. It was prophesised, she would say sometimes. Or it was a curse. And at the point, when the girl gave up hope for ever escaping and fall asleep, she would stop. She would stare into the fire and not look at me because I reminded her of my father.  
There are two endings, she would say. Do you want her to be happy or sad? I always said happy since I was a boy and didn’t realise that in stories like these no one is ever happy. She would smile absently and pat my head saying that I was a good boy, a good boy – shame that…I never found out what it was a shame about.  
The king who found her, or he might have been a prince, raped her and she bore him two children named Day and Dawn, and one of them sucked on her finger to free the thistle that had put her to sleep. And the king’s wife, in her jealousy, tried to eat the sleeping woman and her children. Tried to devour them whole so the world would never know of her shame and misery.  
What a horrible story, Beckett said when Mister Mercer had gone quiet. No wonder you turned out the way you did. I had princes climbing women’s hair and living happily ever after.  
Mister Mercer had nothing to say to that but thought that it might explain Sir’s world view and his firm belief that something akin to perfection could be found. 

 

Beckett was asleep when he felt something in his hair. Spiders, was his first thought. The second was that it was pirates coming to scalp him, or natives, or gypsies, or something else equally distasteful. Instead the fingers that were supposed to be grabbing his hair and ripping him up from his head continued to stroke the locks. Occasionally dipping down to his neck and back.  
Mister Mercer, he half growled and grumbled it, burying his face into the pillow. Go away.  
You weren’t sleeping well, Sir.  
Beckett didn’t reply. If he had he would have said that he knew whose fault that was because a certain someone insisted on telling him he was handsome still and that was a bally lie and Mister Mercer shouldn’t come up with such shit when he knows his master doesn’t want to hear it.  
Sometimes it’s what you need to hear.  
I hadn’t realised I spoke aloud.  
You didn’t, Sir. I inferred. Shall I be frank?  
Nothing’s ever stopped you before. He balled the pillow up and continued to press his face into it.  
You are hiding from London, and if it is for the reason I think it is, Sir. I hate to inform you that you are currently old news and no one will give you sideways glances anymore or whisper rudely. Lady Castlewood’s husband just died in a duel and she’s been evicted from her house so the Viscountess has taken her in but there’s rumor of Lady Castlewood having had an affair with the man who stabbed her husband. It’s all very sordid, Sir. London’s devouring it.  
You’ve been speaking with Lady Alice.  
No, but your wife has.  
He remained silent, Mercer’s fingers working through his hair still. He remembered lying on a filthy bed in a filthy sheet with filthy bandages over his body and Mister Mercer had sat beside him like this, with hands stroking his hair like this. It had taken him three weeks to find him once the pirates whose names he couldn’t remember had captured him. Not captured him so much as scooped him up from the sea and decided it would be a grand old time to torture a member of the Company. Beckett didn’t know what Mister Mercer did to them once he found him, but he did remember them screaming. He would always remember them screaming. And Mister Mercer soaked in blood. And it had been disgusting but he hadn’t had the presence of mind to say as much.  
It should have been you, he whispered it and made sure it was bitter. Everything they did should have been done to you. That’s your job, isn’t it?  
Mister Mercer leaned in and kissed his head. Soft, barely there. And said that not a day goes by where he doesn’t think of that. He made to leave, boots brushing the floor when Beckett grabbed his hand, still not looking at him, face still buried in the pillow.  
Stay. Just for tonight.  
Of course, Sir.  
Tell me about your life, again. How you were a little rag-tag slut and used to listen to your mother’s fairy tales.  
She told me about the myth of Davy Jones, once. I was five and wanted to be a pirate when I was grown.  
Did she get it right?  
Nearly. She forgot about his heart, though. Or didn’t know about it.  
Most people don’t know about the heart of monsters.  
Silence that was consent as Mister Mercer rolled him onto his back and kissed him till he was moaning and arching and wanting everything that was the older man. And the hands were calloused as they brushed up his thighs, over his hips, pelvic bone showing though it never had before, over ribs and quivering stomach and up to tangle in his hair as the older man’s mouth sucked on his neck and chest and shoulders and that hollow down where the leg connects to the hip – a name Beckett should remember though he was sure Mister Mercer knew it. And there were warm lips and wet tongue between his legs, sucking just off to the side of where he truly wanted any and all attention paid.  
A sharp gasp that degenerated into a moan as a mouth was on him, sucking, and there were fingers still touching, stroking, petting, everything they could. He had forgotten how it felt to be wanted and decided that relearning the feeling wouldn’t be the worst chore he had ahead of him. 

 

I asked you for a kite, once, Mister Mercer.  
They were sitting in the parlor with tea between and Beckett’s site was getting slowly better in his left eye so buttering biscuits and pouring cream wasn’t as much a chore as it used to be.  
Yes, you did, Sir.  
Do you think we still have it?  
I couldn’t say, Sir.  
Beckett let a smile play on his lips. It was smug and amused and everything Mister Mercer remembered from before the Caribbean.  
You have it tucked away somewhere, I think. Or perhaps Johnston does.  
Johnston would know, Sir. Not I.  
And by saying Not I he was saying he knew but didn’t feel like telling for the game was fun to play and he wanted to see his master smile more since it meant he was feeling better when he did. Beckett demanded another story, another fairy tale since he had grown up in a good Protestant house with a mother who tended towards the Puritan almost and so never heard such things as a boy.  
Do you think the prince raped the girl? He asked it with disinterest. The one who was sleeping with the thistle in her finger.  
Yes.  
Do you think she ever forgave him?  
Perhaps. Maybe after a long time, things like that are hard to forgive, Sir. And I always thought the king didn't expect it.  
Do you think your mother ever forgave your father?  
No. She was not the forgiving type.  
Becket nodded, having figured it all along since only women truly angry would tell their child such stories. He asked whatever happened to Mister Mercer’s father and the older man simply said he was dead and Beckett wondered how the clerk had killed him. Instead he asked for a fairy tale, a happy one, with knights and dragons and King Arthur and something classic and British. And so Mister Mercer did, spun tales till sunset and Beckett figured it wasn’t the worst way to begin things at all, with fairy tales. Just so long as they ended happily ever after.


End file.
